The UEFA Champions League field has shrunk, and so has the margin for error. Instead of a slate of eight opponents, the 24 remaining clubs are down to just one each week, and this week, the teams who finished between ninth and 24th in the league phase table will go head-to-head in the first leg of a two-legged affair, with the winner on aggregate moving on to face a team that finished in the top eight. I already broke down the full bracket and odds to advance, but today, I’m going to be looking at the best bets for the first leg of fixtures.
DraftKings Sportsbook has plenty of bets available every week for the UCL, and the Playoff Round is no exception. Here are my top picks for this week’s football action:
First, let’s take a look at the full list of fixtures:
Paris Saint-Germain at Brest, 12:45 p.m. ET, February 11
PSV Eindhoven at Juventus, 3 p.m. ET, February 11
Real Madrid at Manchester City, 3 p.m. ET, February 11
Borussia Dortmund at Sporting CP, 3 p.m. ET, February 11
Atalanta at Club Brugge, 12:45 p.m. ET, February 12
Benfica at AS Monaco, 3 p.m. ET, February 12
Bayern Munich at Celtic, 3 p.m. ET, February 12
AC Milan at Feyenoord, 3 p.m. ET, February 12
Khvicha Kvaratskhelia Anytime Goal Scorer (+160)
Arguably the biggest transfer of the January window was the Georgian winger Kvaratskhelia making the move from Serie A’s Napoli to the Ligue 1 leaders for 80 million Euros. In three domestic league games for PSG, Kvaratskhelia has only scored once, but he’s also assisted once and been a strong attacking option for Luis Enrique’s side. He’s fired off at least two shots in each of his four matches with the Parisians, including a 4-1 home win over Monaco in which he took four shots — two on target — and scored his first goal while playing just 66 minutes.
What’s more, Kvaratskhelia will be familiar with his opponent on Tuesday, because PSG have been drawn against Ligue 1 side Brest, who are currently eighth in the table. They did hold Kvaratskhelia to his worst game in a PSG kit so far, as he only got off three shots — one on target — and didn’t register a goal contribution and played just 57 minutes as PSG went on to win, 5-2. PSG led just 2-1 when he was subbed off for Désiré Doué during that match. Still, the more familiar Kvaratskhelia gets with PSG’s schemes, the more likely he is to find the back of the net.
In the league phase, Brest had a decent defense, conceding just 11 goals, tied for the 10th-fewest among the 24 teams that advanced to the knockout stages. But they were lucky to concede that few — they gave up chances worth 12.5 xG, the seventh-worst among the qualified teams. They gave up three goals each to Real Madrid and Barcelona, who were the only great attacks that Brest faced in the league phase.
Real Madrid Moneyline (+185)
Man City vs. Real Madrid in the Champions League knockout stage is always an instant classic; last season, the two battled it out in the quarterfinals, drawing both legs before the Spanish giants came out on top in a penalty shootout, and the season before that, they met in the semifinals, where a dominant second-leg performance by Manchester City sent them through, 5-1 on aggregate.
Both squads look a little bit different, though; Ballon d’Or winner Rodri is still out with a torn ACL for City and Kylian Mbappe is settling in at Real Madrid. The Galacticos haven’t been incredibly convincing in recent weeks, especially in La Liga — where they suffered a shock defeat to Espanyol in Matchweek 22 before drawing with second-place Atlético Madrid last week — but they’ve still won seven of their last 10 matches in all competitions and have produced better chances than their opponents in every game since December 14. Mbappe has scored six goals in his last four league matches.
Meanwhile, Pep Guardiola’s side has largely gotten past its midseason slump in the Premier League, but City has been far from its dominant self. It required a second-half flurry of goals just to advance to the playoff phase at all, and it took a 5-1 drubbing at the hands of Arsenal during Matchweek 24 of the Premier League, as the Gunners fired five past Ederson from just 1.0 expected goals. Even though the game will take place at the Etihad, Manchester City is just 2-2-0 at home in the Champions League despite a relatively kind set of fixtures, while Real Madrid managed to pick up two wins on the road, including an impressive 3-2 result against Atalanta, who tied with the Galacticos on 15 points.
Dortmund Win and O2.5 Goals (+340)
Dortmund games in the Champions League have been nothing if not dramatic, as the club ranks second in goals scored and tied for 17th in goals conceded. Striker Serhou Guirassy is tied for the competition’s Golden Boot so far, having netted nine times during the league phase. Meanwhile, Sporting’s attack is no slouch either, as they scored 13 goals (six contributed by Viktor Gyökeres) in the league phase and, like Dortmund, conceded 12.
Gyökeres is still one of the most in-form strikers in Europe, and it would be no surprise to see him put one past Gregor Kobel on Tuesday. But ultimately, I trust Dortmund’s attack far more, even if they’ve struggled in the Bundesliga, sitting just 11th in the table. Sporting’s Champions League journey so far this season can be split into two; in the first four games of the league phase, they picked up 10 points, but after manager Ruben Amorim left for Manchester United, they only picked up one point in their last four Champions League matches, including a loss to RB Leipzig that accounted for that team’s only points of the competition.
Meanwhile, Dortmund came a single point shy of not having to play in this round at all, and they’ve played plenty of good teams close, including a 3-2 loss to Barcelona on December 11 in which they actually produced better chances than the Catalans, 2.7-2.0. Their most recent Champions League game, a 3-1 win over Ukrainian side Shakhtar Dontesk, was fairly convincing, and although they lost 2-1 to Stuttgart in their most recent Bundesliga game, they did produce the better chances. If Guirassy and Karim Adeyemi can be a little bit more clinical in their finishing on Tuesday, Dortmund should take a lead back to Germany for the return leg.
Club Brugge U0.5 Goals (+185)
Of all the teams that advanced to the playoff round, no team scored fewer than Club Brugge’s seven goals, which were three fewer than Brest and Inter Milan’s 10. The Belgians netted one past Manchester City during Matchweek 8 of the competition, but prior to that, they were shut out in a 0-0 draw to Juventus in Matchweek 7. They also haven’t been in incredible form in the domestic league, either, picking up just four points from their last three matches, although they still trail Genk by just six points.
Meanwhile, only three teams allowed fewer than Atalanta’s six goals during the league phase, and all three of them — plus Aston Villa, which also conceded just six — advanced automatically to the Round of 16. Mateo Carnesecchi kept five clean sheets — more than all but Inter’s Yann Sommer — and despite conceding five combined goals to the two Spanish giants, Atalanta never looked seriously challenged. The Italians are also in incredible form domestically, as they smashed Hellas Verona, 5-0, in their most recent match.
Of course, the fact that Club Brugge has struggled to score in the Champions League so far and the fact that Atalanta has looked invincible at the back doesn’t necessarily mean that Carnesecchi will keep another clean sheet. In three of his five clean sheets in the league phase, the opponent racked up chances worth at least 0.5 expected goals, so Carnesecchi is arguably lucky to have allowed as few goals as he has. However, by that same token, both of the times Club Brugge was shut out in the league phase, it had more than 0.5 expected goals, so perhaps its luck, too, will reverse. Club Brugge only scored three goals in four matches at its home stadium, the Jan Breydelstadioin.
Christian Pulisic Anytime Goal Scorer (+210)
I might be choosing Pulisic just because he’s American, given that he has cooled off somewhat after his hot start to the season, when he found the back of the net in five of his first seven Serie A matches. He was the team’s leading scorer in the league phase, though, netting four times, including in two of his past three matches. In the match where he didn’t, he wasn’t substituted on until the 75th minute and touched the ball just seven times against Girona in a match that Milan ended up winning, 1-0. The fact that Milan secured the transfer of Mexican striker Santiago Giménez — a former Feyenoord player — might not help Pulisic’s chances of finding the back of the net, though, given that he’ll take shots away from him.
Still, the Dutch side gave up 21 goals, seven more than any other team remaining in the competition, even if they were incredibly unlucky to give up that many from an expected goals allowed figure of just 13.8. Feyenoord’s goalkeeper, Timon Wellenreuther, has struggled massively this season, recording a save percentage of just 53.3%, a figure that places him in just the first percentile among goalkeepers in Europe’s top five leagues, the Champions League, and the Europa League. Meanwhile, Pulisic has recorded 1.6 shots on target per 90 minutes, the highest figure of his career, as well as a 69.2% shot on target ratio, which is also a career high. He’s the only American to have reached double-digit UCL goals for his career, and against the weakest defense remaining in the competition, I like him to add another to his ledger on Wednesday.
